Finally, at the beginning you'll do just fine with a basic set of router bits that run ~$40. A starter set will typically include straight bits for edge matching material, a selection of edge finishing bits, and some joinery bits. As you work on a few projects you may find that more specialized bits are needed. But specialized bits are expensive - so purchasing them as you have a specific need makes more sense than buying in anticipation of a need.
One of the challenges we all face is how to move machines into a home without damaging the home, the machinery, or yourself. I actually had to bring things through the front door, and across hardwood floors, and turn 90° to descend the stairs into the shop. To protect the floors, I laid down sheets of 1/2" MDF that I could use later. On the wooden stairs, I used three strips of softwood strap­ping, held with wood screws to the stairs. I mounted a 2x4 baton to the wall studs at the top of the stairs, with a 5/16-inch eye-bolt through it.
Every woodworker (I think!) dreams of someday being able to construct their own dedicated woodworking space. To date, I have bounced around from garage to garage (about 4 times), making the best of a crappy real estate situation. And while I have been lucky to have fairly large spaces to work in, I still daydreamed about the possibility of designing a shop from the ground up, with both woodworking and video production in mind.
Like most things in life, we believe that entrepreneurship can be learned, you just have to be willing to put one foot in front of the other. Aftering reading How to Start a Small Business 101, you’ll be equipped with the essential tools and resources you need to succeed at planning, raising capital, and executing crucial day-to-day business operations.
After a year I am still arranging my MAN CAVE . Mine is 2,400 square feet with a 500 sq ft garage and 500 square for room upstairs that serves as gallery of my photos (yes I have several sins) and a conference room as well as any finished projects from the shop. I teach, probono middle school boys and girls in what the school calls an enrichment program. There I have named this the Water’s Edge Woodworking Academy. Actually it is open to my neighbors to build their projects when I am present. I am about one chapter ahead of them. When I told my wife last week I was thinking of an addition she told me “”over my dead body” Taking up extra room are two cnc routers … a Shopbot Buddy Alpha and a Legacy 5 axis cnc machine.
Really enjoyed watching the video of the shop build. You will be turning out great pieces in no time. At the end of the video it looks like you have your dust collection system up and running. Where did you purchase the duct work? I thought I remember you talking about this in the old shop. Did you use regular HVAC 4″ round duct or a heavier piece. Thanks for the insight and good woodworking.
SBA provides support and tools to aspiring small business owners and in particular to minority-owned, women-owned, disadvantaged, and veteran-owned businesses, including a government-backed financing scheme to qualified participants. Local and state authorities also have a range of programs designed to encourage the growth of your small business. Make sure to research your local authority’s website.
7. Illuminate your space in different ways. Lighting is important in any retail shop, but it's particularly critical in tight quarters. If a corner of your store is not well lit, that square footage is as good as lost, Langdon says. She recommends using a combination of track lights, lamps, sconces and picture lights. This mixture will not only ensure that your entire space is well lit, but it also will add flair and variety. "Picture lights are amazing. They give a wonderful glow," she says. "Think in terms of layers of light."
A battery isolator allows your vehicle’s alternator to charge your auxiliary batteries while you drive, and keeps everything separated so you don’t drain your starting battery. Since we installed our Keyline Chargers Dual Battery Smart Isolator, our batteries are almost always fully charged. It’s also very simple to install - the toughest part is running the cable inside your van from the engine compartment.
It’s also a good idea to cover up any exposed insulation or open stud bays so that you have a flat surface to mount stuff on the walls of your workshop. Here we’re attaching plywood panels to the metal framing but in most garages or sheds you can just nail them directly to the studs. We’re also getting a jump on organizing by putting in a hose reel next to the location we’ve chosen for our air compressor.

Right before you start your small business, everyone has a dream setup for their small business in their head, along with a laundry list of amazing features. It’s probably large and full of natural light, opposite from a park, and filled with beautiful details like a long solid oak counter and a little bell over the door. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with these aspirations. In fact, it’s vital to have a clear vision of what you’re working towards. It can, however become a problem if you let the perfect business location become a barrier to opening your doors in the first place.

In our opinion, the best kind of fridge you can get for a DIY campervan is a portable 12V fridge/freezer. These fridges are built for adventuring on 4x4 vehicles and boats. They’re very rugged, and they don’t need to be kept perfectly level like mini-fridges. They can run off 12V power or regular 110V. They keep your food as cold as you want, and they can operate as either a fridge or a freezer.
Tired of having your caulk tubes lying all over the workbench or your shelves? Make this organizer from a scrap of 2×8 and a piece of 1/4-in. plywood. Just lay out a pattern for your 2-in. hole saw to follow and drill holes through the 2×8. Then glue the plywood to the bottom. Now you can set it on a shelf and easily identify the tube you’re looking for. — Burnie Lorenz
Do you want to create the next great retail dynasty? Do you want to be Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago? Or are you just looking for a simple local lifestyle business? Are you hoping to create a franchise model? Or do you see your local business as a testing ground for an ecommerce business? Your end goal will clearly inform your decisions, so it’s worth considering what it is early on.
Will this make me money? If it will not, cross it out. If you want to keep it on, please rephrase your goal so the outcome can be money driven. For example: Grow Instagram following (bad) vs. use Instagram to drive traffic and sales to website (winner!). This way, you can break that goal down into tasks ( ill show you that in an another step) and those tasks will lead to you actually making money with that goal instead of with just a larger Instagram following.
I will also typically secure those sorts of items under my locked platform if I am gone for a few days in the backcountry, because in reality I could probably care less if someone broke in and stole my box of food, versus someone who stole my clothes or expensive down jackets, which would be much more problematic (and costly) to replace on the road.
I have a plastic bed lining on my truck, which also covered the back of the tailgate… I just popped the screws off, took off the plastic liner and drilled holes in the sheet of plywood to match those used by the plastic tailgate cover. Sorry if that doesn’t help you with your setup. But I’m sure you could just drill your own holes in the metal tailgate. Use the plywood cover as a guide for your screw holes…
Hey Marc. Just wanted to send a huge congrats your way for this milestone. It’s been pretty awesome to follow you on this journey since I discovered you on iTunes some 5 or 6 years ago. Mad props for what you’ve done to grow and enhance the online woodworking community as well as woodworking as a whole. I think with todays generation (as well as future generations) growing up behind a computer, the work that you and the rest of the podcasting world do will go a long way towards bringing new people into the craft. I hope that in the future you are able to start a series of videos showing how you introduce Mateao to the craft. Keep up the awesome work!
“Every time I’m choosing a new a location, I head down there with a big flask of coffee and a clicker to count all the people that walk past. Then I walk to the nearest public transportation at rush hour and look at how people are heading home. I turned down one location because while it was right next to the subway, I noticed all the commuters were coming out of the other subway entrance. It turns out all the residences in that area were on the other side of the street.” —ShopKeep Founder and Experienced Small Business Owner

Couldn’t disagree more. Still got the same setup a few years in. As mentioned the sag is minimal (not non-existent), I place a small removable 2×2 near the tailgate so I can hop up top. You’re not building a home up to code, you’re building a practical truck camping solution, and in my extensive experience it is more than fine. You can do thicker plywood, but realize that it will be much heavier and more cumbersome to move.

This is a fundamental question. A good place to start is with a survey of your property. Most municipalities have a maximum percentage of your lot that you can build on and standard setbacks from your property lines that you will need to adhere to without needing to request special permission to build. On a photocopy of your survey you can draw in what your local setbacks are in order to define the location within which you will be permitted to build. In a best-case scenario, you will have the space to build without compromising too much on space or location; otherwise, you may need to request a minor variance, which would allow you to circumvent an obsta­cle such as a setback.
1) I haven’t lived with another person sleeping in the back (where you at ladies?!). I have spent a few weeks here and there on the road with others, I slept in the back, they had their own tent at camp. It does get crowded having two people with full alpine kits sharing the same storage space. You have to juggle space and work together to get to things. As for two people sleeping in the back, I think that would be pretty tight (doable, but challenging). In my research (links in this post at the bottom) I know there were a few couples living in a shared truck bed…
Congrats on a very nice shop. Great video to capture the moments. I too have moved around from place to place (in the Army) and I have to make my shop work with what they give me for a house. I’ve done work out of a tool shed and I make it work becuase I just love working with wood. Once I retire and settle in one spot I hope to get something similar to yours. I’ve picked up a lot of ideas watching this build.
There’s a reason why some of the biggest players online have names that are essentially gobbledegook: Zappos, Skype, Zynga. While there’s certainly some psychological naming principles that often come into play, at the most basic level, it’s simply easier to find this space online and then strive to own the brand name in the minds of consumers. How important this will be to your small business will depend on a number of variables, including your intended size, location, and your desire to exploit ecommerce as well as a local brick-and-mortar business.
For those of us building apps, there's an increasingly larger burden on us to meet the expectations of our users. We've outlined the considerations of what makes a great app in the past, which are more relevant than ever. Users simply don't have the patience for apps that are overly complex, slow, or buggy. The best apps are personalized, highly contextualized, and touch human emotion. Meeting those user expectations is significantly challenging.
Instead of permanently mounting my 6-in. vise to a work-bench, I attached it to scrap plywood so I can clamp it wherever I need it. Stack two pieces of 3/4-in. plywood and screw them together with 1-1/4 in. drywall screws. Mark the vise-mounting holes on the plywood and drill 3/4-in. guide holes through both pieces. Recess the nut by drilling through the bottom sheet with a 1-in. spade bit using the 3/4-in. hole as a guide. Fasten the vise to the plywood with bolts sized to match the vise-mounting holes. If the bolt shafts are too long, cut them off with a hacksaw. — LuAnn Aiu. Plus: Learn how to use vise grips to pull nails.
Can you outfit your shop with all the necessary hand tools for just $100? Christopher Schwarz says you can, and he’ll show you how to do it in this article. Take Christopher’s shopping list to the flea market and come back with everything you need for less than you’d spend on one new hand plane. You can do all your woodworking with hand tools, and this article from Popular Woodworking will equip you with everything you need.
When registering your business name you should also consider whether or not you have plans to expand your local business nationally or online in the future. Registering your business with the state does not offer brand protection beyond the state it is registered in. For example: If Bob’s Bike Shop is registered in New York, no other business will be able to use that name in that state. However, someone in Idaho can still register their business as Bob’s Bike Shop. If you have aspirations that look beyond Main Street, USA and would like the option to expand nationally or on the web, you should consider trademarking your business. When you trademark your business name, it makes it a lot easier to recover property that infringes upon your brand. For example: If Bob’s Bike Shop in Ohio purchased the domain www.BobsBikeShop.com but Bob’s Bike Shop in New York trademarked that name, legally Bob’s Bike Shop in New York has the right to file a domain name dispute to get the domain name back from it’s current owner.
Great video Marc. I know I’m not the first to bring up the reverb in the shop. However I don’t think addition of rubber floor and cabinets will change this much. Furthermore, sound panels look very clunky in my opinion too, but may be necessary above some machines? Materials like drapes and carpet strategically placed can also do wonders, but I don’t know how practical that would be in a wood shop.
Ultimate Small Shop goes beyond the ambit of Amazon, Home Depot and Lowe’s to help woodworkers start their workshop for less than $1,000. Woodworkers will find answers to questions related to the budget, planning, required tools, critical setup factors and more. The guide has been put together by Ralph Chapman, a coach with more than twenty five years of experience in woodworking. Chapman is the small shop expert and what he recommends is not speculation or best case scenarios. He has done it himself. He is now sharing his experience along with expert recommendations so you can begin your woodworking journey right at your home.

To experiment with different wood shop layouts, measure your furniture and equipment to sketch onto your plan in different positions. You can also make cutouts of the footprint of your items so you can easily move them around your floor plan to see how best to arrange them. As you do so, don’t forget to leave adequate spacing around tools and tables.

Living on the road puts you in a wider variety of situations and environments than being stationary. If something goes wrong in the wilderness or if a disaster strikes, you’ll want to know what you should do. The SAS Survival Handbook is one of the best survival books out there. It covers primitive camping, edible plants, encountering wild animals - even disaster situations like nuclear war. It’s packed full of good-to-know actionable information. And it’s a blast to read.

Budget Toilet: Luggable Loo. With the Luggable Loo from Reliance Products, you can turn any 5-gallon bucket into a portable toilet for your van. Make sure to line your bucket with a trash bag or toilet waste bag - then once you’ve done your “doodie” just tie up the bag and dump it in the trash. Reliance also sells deodorant chemicals that will make it easier to live with your new roommate
I like how you thought out the lighting for you shop. I have 6ea.6 tube T-8s but find 6500K bulbs but find lighting for filming is not that good, seems dark to me I use a Canon T3i its a decent camera I do have a row of windows in a 16′ garage door and aman door with a window on one end and a small window at the other end of my shop. Any idea what the issue may be?Could I still be getting too much light?
The more outlets the better! I have a good mix of 220v and 110v outlets throughout the shop. I even included a few in the ceiling and the floor in hopes of avoiding power cords in the walkways. And although this contradicts my previous comments about over-committing, I picked locations that would likely work for various tool configurations. If at some point they don’t work for my setup, I just won’t use them.
When you design your workshop setup, climate control often gets ignored — and that’s a huge mistake! If your workshop or hobby room is in an unconditioned space like a garage or basement, you could find that it’s brutally uncomfortable to work in there during warm weather. You’ll be much happier with a solid fan — or several — to keep air moving for your comfort.
The standard option for a shop floor is a concrete slab. You’re probably not going to go to the trouble of creating a basement beneath your shop, although it is possible. The weight of most woodworking machines suggests that a con­crete floor is the most solid and durable substrate available. It has the potential to be used as thermal mass to store heat from your heating system or from the sun, but it can be tiring and hard on your body to be standing on concrete all the time. You can add a vapour barrier, 2x4 sleepers and a wooden floor above the concrete to ease the tendency of the floor to strain your feet and back, or you can add anti-fatigue mats in key areas where you’ll be standing for longer periods.
Amenities and Services – You’ll want to understand the full range of amenities offered by a commercial space. These amenities and services may include such things as communal rooms, free Wi-Fi, loading bays and docks, dining options, outdoor space, sewage and utilities, on-site security, and more. The zoning of your business will often dictate the type of amenities and services you require.
Tip: Save money on specialty displays! Many manufacturers offer retailers low-cost or free specialty display fixtures designed to highlight their branded lines, like the one pictured below. These make great speed bump or outpost display units on a tight budget. Your product line reps can tell you if they’re available, plus provide merchandising and display advice.